Russian President Vladimir Putin recently published a New York Times op-ed in which he critiqued this conceit head on: “It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.” Putin’s statement clearly struck a nerve: Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint answered Putin directly (“all humans are created equal—but not all nations are created equal”) while Senator John McCain responded in the wrong Pravda. Obama’s UN remarks represented a rather pointed reply to Putin’s comment. He warned of a “vacuum of leadership” that would result from American disengagement around the globe. He argued that “the world is better” for active U.S. leadership.

Is American “exceptionalism,” then, derived from its globalist foreign policy? Not according to Richard Gamble: In a 2012 article for this magazine, he argued that America has been driven by “old” and “new” American exceptionalisms. Gamble cites an 1899 speech by Yale sociologist William Graham Sumner, written at a time when America’s imperialist bent was beginning to take hold:

When Sumner came to the question of what set America apart from other nations, he debunked the most popular and superficial conception of exceptionalism and looked at history to ground America’s identity in something more substantial. Sumner first noted the irony that by claiming it had a unique civilizing mission to perform, America sounded just like every other major power at the end of the 19th century. “There is not a civilized nation which does not talk about its civilizing mission just as grandly as we do,” he remarked. The English, French, Germans, Russians, Ottoman Turks, and Spanish said the same.

It was not America’s “divine mission,” writes Gamble, that once set it apart. The old idea of exceptionalism was “more about what America doesn’t do than what it does, more about national self-restraint than national self-assertion.”

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government. But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it … The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.

America’s political connections and involvement now extend far beyond Europe’s friendships and enmities. Our engagement around the globe is now routine. Yet Washington advocated for restraint. He was devoted to the peace and permanency of the Union, and to preserving domestic peace at all costs. Only one comment in Washington’s speech hints at “exceptionalism”: he said the U.S. enjoys a peculiarly “detached and distant situation” from other nations, and this position “invites and enables us to pursue a different course.”

In other words, the only “exceptionalism” envisioned by Washington is anathema to that expressed by American politicians today. While Washington saw domestic concerns as our most important preoccupation, Obama defined strict national interests as “narrow” and selfish.

Yet in a nation swimming in debt and riddled with unemployment, perplexed by health care complications and political schisms, one cannot help thinking that these “narrow” concerns are actually quite broad.

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15 Responses to American Exceptionalism Revisited

Washington’s guidance was so obvious and so pristine, it is almost impossible to understand how Americans allowed their Power Elite class to subvert his logic and evolve United States foreign policy into the War Machine-centric Global Cop.

Arrogant, narcissistic Obama lecturing the planet, (about all that Obama is good at – lecturing) while the United States has been in bed with repressive, kleptocratic autocrats including (“our friends the Saudis”) and has set up a Constitution warping National Security apparatus is almost repulsive.

Hopefully, some American politician with an once of personal humility would surface who points to Washington’s Farewell Address as his/her baseline for governance.

You have to hand it to the Likud party. They figured out that the geo-political situation of Israel called for neo-imperalisim from the West. They and their NeoCon-MIC associates have filled the intellectual void of American politics with 19th Century notions of imperial mandates.

We would be much better off if the idea of “American Exceptionalism” were retired to the Museum of Antiquated Notions; that said, I wouldn’t want to be an American politician (much less a President) who publicly takes issue with it, or who chooses not to defend it against Vladimir Putin.

One of my biggest complaints about the Obama Presidency – if not my biggest complaint – has been his unwillingness to stand up to his shrillest critics on the right, and tell them to go pound sand.

Thus, we have over the last year or so the spectacle of Obama trying time and time again to reframe American Exceptionalism in response to comments like those of then Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner “President Obama has already said he does not believe in American exceptionalism the way we believe in it,”, by Dick Cheney this is a guy who doesn’t fully understand or share that view of American exceptionalism that I think most of us believe in.”, by Rick Santorum “he doesn’t believe America is exceptional.”, by Mitt Romney “Our president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do,”.

Meanwhile, when it comes to claims of Exceptionalism … Putin far surpasses any statements by ANY American politicians. From last year:“We will not allow someone to impose their will on us, because we have our own will! It has helped us to conquer! We are a victorious people! It is in our genes, in our genetic code!”

Reading the above from George Washington’s farewell address just about makes my remaining hair stand up on my head. It so obviously points at our situation now: entangled in the ME as a tool for a foreign government. Too bad there is no movement to prominently display that text in the halls of power.

For the record, I also do not believe in American exceptionalism as Ed Fuelner, Dick Cheney, Rick Santorum or Mitt Romney see it. I have always understood the term to refer to our freedoms, our industry, our creativity, and our accomplishments. Exceptional. Their version? Baloney.

Oddly, “America exceptionalism” denies American particularity: A frontier nation founded by Englishmen and Scots, on the basis of English constitutionalism and Protestant religion, accreting to it immigrants from elsewhere, but especially Northern Europe.

The notion that we are merely a “proposition nation” without a particular history, is false, and undergirds the notion of exceptionalism. Alas, we do not learn our own history these days.

IMHO I think the USA should move in the direction of transitioning towards being a big strong Switzerland rather than being like Ancient Rome. The USA can engage the world without occupying and policing it.

I won’t likely make myself popular here for saying this, but mightn’t the reason that modern American politicians disregard Washington’s advice is that the world has changed so much in the over 200 years since he lived? Consider that, in the 18th Century, it took several weeks to cross the Atlantic, there were no weapons capable of going more than a few hundred yards, one couldn’t speak to more people than your voice could carry, and the fastest communication was as fast as a horse could travel, and that on very poor roads by our standards. These just may make some difference.

What’s the point of jingoism in general anymore? And by that I mean both the foreign policy jingoism and the constitution jingoism? It’s and old dated document that has done nothing but hold us back in regards to many economic opportunities. Health care and college education being a big part of that. Too me there’s no point at all in occupying countries. We’ve already lost thousands of american lives in both iraq and afghanistan. We need to get out of all these countries and stop being police man of the world. If other countries think it’s so important for occupation then let them be the first to occupy other countries. But not us. We’ve been doing this since the end of world war 2 and all it has done over the decades is cost us so many lives and now it’s added trillions of dolalrs to our deficit.

“[A]ll humans are created equal—but not all nations are created equal … ” Jim DeMint — whether consciously or unconsciously – is engaging in a grand bait-and-switch.

The Founders’ point was that, although all men are demonstrably not created equal with regard to their natural abilities or social station, all men are created equal before the law.

Likewise, while all nations are not created equal with regard to their geographical location, access to natural resources or the abilities or sheer numbers of their population, all nations ought to stand equal before the law.

Thus, “American exceptionalism” seems to have come to mean:

Since we are (demonstrably) more blessed by God than the rest of the nations, we may therefore perpetrate actions on the global stage that would draw howls of protest from us were other nations to perpetrate them.

American Exceptionalism has it’s beginning in 1630 when the puritan, and later the first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop first sighted land, Naumkeag or present day Salem, MA., and wrote of the joyous sight of a land with all the promise of the “shining city on the hill”. What Winthrop saw was the opportunity to practice his faith in ways that the King would not permit in England. It should be noted that Winthrop had a very tough crossing was sea sick for a month and the ship had run out of fresh water halfway leaving only gin to drink. I’m sure the sight of land was exceptional to him. As a resident of the shining city, I live on Winthrop Street in Salem, I like to remind people that by 1692 exceptionalism had morphed into the witch trials. Now wasn’t that exceptional.